The Death and Life of Great American Cities Chapter Summary & Analysis - Part 4, Chapter 19, Visual Order: its Limitations and Possibilities Summary

Part 4, Chapter 19, Visual Order: its Limitations and Possibilities Summary and Analysis

Designing cities means dealing with people's lives. However, cities also need art, but they cannot be viewed as an architectural problem and solved with visual works of art. Streets represent our visual views of cities. They have different kinds of buildings, storefronts, and businesses. When they are used intensely, they need some sort of visual interruptions or they look like they are endless. This is due to the grid-like nature of streets in a city. If they aren't gridlike, too many people get lost in the neighborhood. San Francisco doesn't have this problem because of the hills and slopes.

There are ways to put interruptions to straight streets so they don't have the appearance of being endless. Buildings can jut out to the street edge. They can build squares or parks. However, not all streets should have interruptions. Streets that end at borders are examples. When there are interruptions in...
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